Pretenders
(UK, 107 min.)
Dir. Joss Crowley
Prod. Joss Crowley, Ian Grenfell, Dan Braun
Programme: Galas (World premiere)
Chrissie Hynde doesn’t like being on camera. She doesn’t enjoy interviews, either. But she certainly doesn’t mind telling people how much she dislikes the self-promotional aspects of showbiz.
That dynamic helps make Pretenders an invigorating anomaly among music docs. This handsomely assembled and unconventional study of the British alt-rock group looks at how the Pretenders broke through in the late 1970s and early 1980s and continues to play today. It’s a story about surviving despite the odds in a fickle business, but also the drama that ensues when personality clashes and egos define a band. Said egos really do define the band, however, as Crowley buts heads with Hynde throughout the production, the Pretenders’ hierarchy leaves the lead singer as their lone and reluctant spokesperson. Newbies won’t learn too much outside of some great music, while Pretenders fans may be ambivalent to a portrait in which the key voice often positions the exercise as a pointless endeavour.
Pretenders adds Hynde’s voice through three audio interviews and one on camera chat to which the singer conceded. She shares, several times that cameras make her uncomfortable, and she’s obviously entitled to her privacy. Moreover, Pretenders echoes many music docs that capitalize on the media saturation of rock idols as director Joss Crowley (Shania Twain: Not Just a Girl) offers a thorough collection of performances, interviews, and behind the scenes snippets from the archive. The overlay of audio-only interviews could be seamless. Most of the on-camera exchanges, however, come from an indirect and partly obscured angle and feature clipped answers. Any sense that the fourth interview will yield meatier answers vanishes quickly.
Having a testy star who doesn’t want to talk adds a spot of fun, but it also makes for a limited film. Hynde simply shuts down several perfectly fair topics that Crowley throws at her. “I’d rather we not,” Hynde quips when asked about past relationships. “Can we get back to talking about when we made music?”
Hynde nevertheless offers some insights when it suits her. She tours through the Pretenders origin story and charts her journey from Hereford, Ohio to London, England where she worked her way into the music scene, dabbling in arts criticism and a few gigs. Crowley jumps back and forth in time, eschewing a conventional account of the band from conception to present. Although the non-linear structure jumbles the story a bit with a few digressions, including a segment about Hynde’s time at Kent State University when the 1970 massacre saw several students, including one of her friends’ boyfriends, were killed by police violence amid campus protest.
Hynde doesn’t really want to talk about that part, either, but the structure and back-seat directing helps the doc sidestep a greatest hits narrative too. Anyone looking for stories about “I’ll Stand By You” will have to wait for another documentary. But don’t hold your breath expecting Hynde to do a sequel.
The emphasis on Hynde on one hand gives an extraordinary talent credit for holding a band together through heartache and tragedy. These dark periods include firing founding member Pete Farndon when his drug abuse compromised the band’s professionalism and productivity, and then losing guitarist James Honeyman-Scott two days later at age 25 due to a heart attack following excess drug use. Hynde recalls the turbulent period when all seemed to be over for the Pretenders, and then things worsened when Farndon subsequently died of a heroin overdose that people presumed to have been prompted by his firing.
Pretenders actually does right by Hynde’s insistence upon getting back to the music. An insightful segment about the band’s reformation offers perspectives about survival and adaptation. The documentary hits some poignant notes with its in-depth look at “Back on the Chain Gang” from the band’s 1984 album Learning to Crawl, which saw the Pretenders born anew with fresh members. “Chain Gang,” written prior to the former members’ passing, hits hard when contextualised within their story of loss and renewal.
At the same time, Pretenders completely glosses over the revolving door of bandmates that ensued. Surviving long-time Pretenders Martin Chambers barely gets a word in and one leaves the film with no sense of his on-and-off presence in the band. Crowley also seems fully uninterested in the members who filled in initially filled the vacancies and helped the band continue on, only to leave by their own accord or be replaced. The documentary inadvertently reflects the Pretenders’ history as the Chrissie Hynde show. The film draws upon so much archival material that it could do more with other voices than rely so heavily on the star’s non-answers.
Particularly useful, however, are accounts from tour manager Stan Tippins. He’s the band’s unofficial historian and his meticulous diaries from life on the road help to fill in the gaps. Everyone clearly admires Tippins and his record-keeping and he provides a steady hand amid some friction. He’s enjoyably forthcoming.
The wall-to-wall archival offers a handsomely assembled portrait of a great band and the tragedies of the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll lifestyle that come with the spotlight. But this is largely fan service since there’s only so much to glean here when the key voice proves so reluctant, although Hynde’s evasiveness is half the fun. Even documentaries prove that old adage that it’s sometimes best not meet one’s heroes. But that works in a band’s favour, too, if they’d rather let the music speak for itself when it’s so great.
